How to set up more agile goals? Make your goals C.L.E.A.R. not just S.M.A.R.T.!

After reviewing
my S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals from my last year one person just came up in to my
post feed yesterday evening - Adam Kreek.
Who is Adam? Adam is a Canadian entrepreneur, a motivational speaker (I do like
his TEDx talk: I
Seek Failure: Adam Kreek at TEDx Victoria 2013), and a guy who knows a lot
about team building, change management, leadership, effectiveness, setting
goals and high performance than anyone else. He should be the one, cause he won
the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with his Canadian rowing team.

“In my role as a keynote speaker and workshop
facilitator, I deliver new and invigorating perspectives on success,
achievement, health and fulfillment. The right words, offered in
constructive settings, act as powerful catalysts of change.” ~Adam Kreek

Adam has spent
the past decade and a half both teaching and using strategies for human
performance, achievement, and wellbeing. So what has “Gold Medal Olympic
Athlete” to do with setting goals?

We're all
familiar with S.M.A.R.T. goals, right? Not underestimating you, let`s make
short recapitulation on this topic, how I do understand this:

S - Specific (The more specific,
clear and exact your goal is, the more you know what you want exactly to
achieve, right?)

M - Measurable (Goal, which you
can`t grasp or measure in some way - time, amount, percent, size, kg, revenue,
profit, etc. – is not a goal yet)

A - Attainable (Goals must be realistic to
be achievable so that have results) R - Relevant (Goals should be linked to our
mission, or relate to your organization's vision)

T - Time-bound (fixed duration and
starting and ending points of our goals give us at least the option for
feedback and self-reflection)

I always add two
letters more: another E. and R. E stands for Enthusiastic and R for Reward.

E – Enthusiastic (It is important that we
evaluate and reevaluate our goals regularly with an energetic attitude)

R – Reward ( For every major
milestone reward. Why? To reassure yourself to stay focused)

So what is wrong
with the SMART(ER) goals setting? We are now within more faster, more agile
environment today than ever before. The ones who do not adapt who are not
flexible and agile, struggle with survival. With another words SMART(ER) goals
just can't keep up with the speed and agility most businesses are moving
forward to today.

Here comes gold Olympic medal Adam again. According to Adam,
these new business environments require a new way of how we should look at
setting goals. He calls it C.L.E.A.R. goals. In my opinion this is something
what fully resonates with my organisation`s vision and mission. And being honest, after
hearing this, it resonates also with my personal holistic understanding of
things, my goal setting included.

What C.L.E.A.R.
stands for? Here it is:

C- Collaborative

Goals should
encourage employees/team members to work together collaboratively and in teams.
Everyone does have significant power to influence the environment in which we
work and live in.

L - Limited

This includes in
my opinion all parts of SMART goals. Goals should be limited in scope, duration
and energy input. If we can see the whole goal it is much easier to be
accomplished.

E - Emotional

This resonates
with the two letters I added to SMART - E and R (see above). Goals should make
an emotional connection to myself on the first place, tapping into my energy
and passion. You can have organizational goals, but without employees, there
are just words without higher life meaning. So how to tide goals to teams? Make
them also personal, that means emotional.

A - Appreciable

This is one of
the most precious thing here: emphasis on breaking large goals in to small
ones. Large goals should be broken down into smaller goals so they can be
accomplished more quickly and easily for long-term gain.

R - Refinable

To BE more agile,
not just to DO agile we should set goals with a headstrong and steadfast
objective, but as new situations or information arise, this gives us
possibility (permission) to refine and modify your goals.

How do you like
CLEAR goal setting? Does it make more sense to set up your goals like this?

Once more let`s
go back to Adam Kreek with one quote: "When we prepared for our
Atlantic crossing, our higher goal was to cross the Atlantic Ocean, but we also
created three rules to support that higher goal. The first rule was don't die,
the second rule was don't kill your mates, and the third was don't sink your
boat. So look after yourself, look after each other, and look after your
equipment."

Now is time to
review my new goals for 2015 again. In my opinion it is worthy. When you set a
goal, doesn`t matter if it is in your business, career, or life, it must be
more than „compelling statement”, that everyone does and expects from us to do.
Compelling statement that can be built out, embraced, and acted upon by every
member of the team. CLEAR goals unite people, not just SMART ones.

Use Adam Kreek's
CLEAR acronym for setting goals for the new year 2015!

Last question in
the end: What are your CLEAR goals?

What is you opinion? What are you most excited about? Share your opinion with others in the comments below the article. If you liked the article, please share it!

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My name is Jaromir Prusa (@nacesteskoucem), I am dealing with professional coaching, lectoring and professional networking. I particularly specialize in executive coaching, facilitation council and professional business networking. You can contact me (LinkedIn profil), rightHERE.